The readings for this week began with The Gutenberg Galaxy, by Marshall McLuhan. It was an interesting piece that spent quite a bit of time in analysis of King Lear, and it’s emphasis in the rise of individualism, which was interesting though I’m not very familiar with the play, so I wasn’t able to follow along in the beginning very well. After that, however, when it moved on to discuss the difference between the written and the spoken word, and how traditional African communities are more reliant on the latter, the piece was more accessible.

In the second piece, New Rules for the New Economy, the piece to me seemed more interesting as history than economics, because the piece is from 10 years ago, when the global economy was in a very different shape and at an earlier stage of the transition from reliance on physical goods like automobiles to reliance on intangible property like software. It began with a speculation of the future and an understanding that things would not stay how they were, but I am certain that the dotcom bubble bursting and the internet becoming less of an economic platform came as a surprise.